Subject Award · Physical Sciences & Engineering · 2026
The ten finalist universities are the ten highest-ranked on the Chemistry collaboration index, listed here alphabetically until the full index publishes on 15 September. Each finalist is represented by an academic whose recent work exemplifies why: a real project, drawn from the open scholarly record, cited so you can check it.
The finalists
A Sensitive and Reliable Organic Fluorescent Nanothermometer for Noninvasive Temperature Sensing
Measuring temperature inside a living cell calls for a thermometer far smaller than the cell itself. The team built one from a dual-responsive organic luminogen encapsulated in natural saturated fatty acids, whose sharp melting points and rapid reversible phase transitions translate heat into a change in fluorescence, then formulated the composite into dispersed nanoparticles for biological use.
Forming carbon-carbon bonds by coupling two electrophiles has become a valuable synthetic tool, and this minireview surveys where it now stands. It explains the current state of the art in nickel-catalysed reductive cross-couplings and highlights the openings created by the emerging fields of photoredox catalysis and electrochemistry.
A single small molecule is characterised here from many angles at once, combining infrared, Raman, ultraviolet-visible and NMR spectroscopy with a suite of computational analyses. The study profiles 5-chloro-2-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldehyde, a compound the authors describe as a promising antitumour agent, building the detailed structural and electronic picture that further work would need.
Rather than making and breaking chemical bonds, organic cocrystal engineering combines two or more molecules held together by noncovalent intermolecular interactions. The work sets out the definition and advantages of this approach to creating enhanced organic functional materials, addresses key questions about intermolecular forces and cocrystal function, and surveys recent developments in the field.
Fluorochemicals from fluorspar via a phosphate-enabled mechanochemical process that bypasses HF
Every fluorochemical currently traces back to hydrogen fluoride, a highly toxic and corrosive gas made from fluorspar under harsh conditions. Inspired by calcium phosphate biomineralisation, the team grind fluorspar with dipotassium hydrogen phosphate to give a solid containing crystalline phases suitable for forging sulfur-fluorine and carbon-fluorine bonds, bypassing hydrogen fluoride altogether.
Spreading a precious metal across a support as isolated single atoms can combine the precision of molecular catalysis with the convenience of a solid. This work reports a heterogeneous iridium single-atom-site catalyst for carbenoid insertion into oxygen-hydrogen bonds, achieving high regioselectivity in a reaction where controlling where the bond forms is the difficulty.
Revisiting metal fluorides as lithium-ion battery cathodes
Metal fluorides have long been considered as cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries, and this work revisits the case for them. Appearing in the materials literature as a reassessment rather than a single experiment, it reconsiders what these compounds offer as cathodes and which questions about using them remain open.
Supramolecular materials assemble themselves through noncovalent forces such as hydrogen bonding, and metal-metal interactions have emerged as an unconventional addition to that toolkit. Exploring how these interactions can guide the design and construction of self-assembled metal-based materials with rich spectroscopic functionalities, the work aims to stimulate new research directions despite the challenge of controlling such hierarchical architectures.
Analysis and Refinement of Host-Guest Interactions in Metal-Organic Frameworks
Metal-organic frameworks are porous crystalline materials whose adjustable pores make them promising for gas adsorption and separation, substrate binding and catalysis, applications relevant to climate change, energy and pollution. Analysing and refining the host-guest interactions within these frameworks, the work shows how precisely engineered pore environments can be understood and improved.
Confining luminescent guests such as organic dyes, metal complexes, quantum dots and hybrid perovskites inside metal-organic framework hosts creates unconventional fluorescent materials with fascinating photophysical and photochemical properties. The work offers a critical yet accessible guide to how these guest-host systems are designed and made, how they are characterised, and the techniques used to pinpoint exactly where the guests sit.
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Partners verify their data, feature their academics, and are eligible for the Subject Awards. Finalists are identified from open data; winners are decided by our editorial team and announced on 15 September 2026.
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Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) based nanofiber architectures for the removal of heavy metal ions
Photocontrolled RAFT polymerization: past, present, and future
Photocontrolled RAFT polymerization: past, present, and future
Macroscopic MOF Architectures: Effective Strategies for Practical Application in Water Treatment
MOF-enabled confinement and related effects for chemical catalyst presentation and utilization
How Reproducible are Surface Areas Calculated from the BET Equation?
Early Release Science of the exoplanet WASP-39b with JWST NIRSpec G395H
Early Release Science of the exoplanet WASP-39b with JWST NIRSpec G395H
Electrophilic reactivities of cyclic enones and α,β-unsaturated lactones
Diagnostics and correction of batch effects in large‐scale proteomic studies: a tutorial